Large-scale converting waste coffee grounds into functional carbon materials as high-efficient adsorbent for organic dyes

Functional carbon materials have been fabricated through simple and effective catalytic carbonization with waste coffee grounds (CGs) as carbon precursor and FeCl3 as catalyst. The effect of FeCl3 loading and carbonization temperature on carbon yield was investigated. The morphology and structure of as-synthesized carbons was characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and nitrogen isothermal adsorption/desorption measurement, respectively. Furthermore, the carbon materials showed high efficiency for the removal of methylene blue (MB, 653.6 mg g(-1)), methyl orange (MO, 465.8 mg g(-1)) and rhodamine B (RB, 366.1 mg g(-1)). More importantly, the carbon was magnetic, so it can be easily separated by a magnet and reused multiple times. This work not only exploited a low-cost and large-scale preparation method to synthesize functional carbon materials from bioresources, but also provided an eco-friendly and effective adsorbent in water purification applications.